The latest episode of the Building Insights podcast is now live. In this episode, Nigel Ostime, partner at Hawkins\Brown architects, discusses the impact of the recent Building Safety Act, introduced to bring a range of improvements in building procurement to help ensure greater safety in future.
Nigel Ostime is a partner at Hawkins\Brown architects and is a key figure in sharing knowledge and improving best practice, including taking part in various research within the practice and working within RIBA’s Client Liaison Group. This has included work around the post-Hackitt fire safety agenda, and the potential of the Building Safety Act to increase the role of architects in achieving more robust procurement for accountable, fire-safe designs for high-risk residential schemes, in the wake of Grenfell.
In this podcast Nigel discusses the impact of the recent Building Safety Act and explains how although many of the provisions won’t be in force until secondary legislation is produced, there is a changing picture already in terms of a potential larger role for architects as the Principal Designer on high-risk projects.
He believes robustness is sorely lacking – but that there are improvements within the Act – such as the new gateway approach to checking designs as they progress. Nigel comments on the findings of our recent white paper on fire safety and design accountability, and ponders whether the act will be clear enough on Design and Build contractors’ responsibility, for example.
Click here to listen to Episode 8 of Building Insights